On the death of cousin Paweł

As this note is automatically posted I am about to depart from Jelenia Góra back to Warsaw after my cousin’s funeral held yesterday. I learnt about his sudden death on Thursday evening, yet I was not shell-shocked…

Paweł died aged 43 on Tuesday, 23 January 2024. He was survived by a mother, a wife and two children.

He was the only son of Ciocia Asia, my mother’s cousin who I first met in 2009. During that holidays we also got to know Paweł, his wife Agnieszka and their daughter (aged 4 then). Around that time despite the distance between our part of the family, the relationship got quite intense. In November 2013 Wujek Mietek, Ciocia Asia’s husband, died from cancer. Soon after the second child of Paweł and Agnieszka was born and they bought a plot near Jelenia Góra and built a house there.

I last visited them in their still newly-built home in June 2019. With Ciocia Asia I last met last March, during late-winter skiing holidays.

In early January 2024 Paweł’s wall on Facebook was crying for help. Online I found out Agnieszka threw him out of their house and they were about to divorce. I was distasted by him washing their dirty linen in public. I remember talking to my mother and fearing he would take an unwanted ultimate step in his despair. My mother talked to Ciocia Asia last week. Paweł was home down with COVID-19.

On Thursday evening Agnieszka posted an obituary on her facebook profile. My first thought was he had taken away his life. Paweł was a well-known teacher and a sport coach in Jelenia Góra so the news on his departure were published in local news sites. Reading some of the comments made me want to puke… Anonymous people either blamed his wife or asked how many time he had been vaccinated. In order to cut out all the speculations, Agnieszka informed on the heart attack as a cause of death. The problem with the heart was most probably an aftermath of a car accident Paweł had had in November 2023, during which the airbags did not go off. Since that time he had only stronger pains in his chest and took only stronger painkillers. Most probably his heart did not resist increasing dosage of medicines, COVID-19 and the divorce-related stress.

I feel terribly sorry for Ciocia Asia, for Paweł’s daughter, aged 18, who will be taking high-school leaving exams in May and his son, aged nearly 10. They are now experiencing a triple trauma – caused by the divorce, the sudden death and people gossiping on the suicide as the cause of death.

Fate and justice at times go separate ways. Balancing at the edge of chaos sometimes involves having a brush on death and getting carried away...

Grandpa

My paternal grandfather was born on 17 May 1926 in Skolimów (currently Konstancin-Jeziorna), where he spent most of his childhood. Shortly before WW2 his family moved to Warsaw. Unlike his two older brothers who died in the uprising, along with his sister (died in December 2017) and brother (died in December 2010) fled Warsaw in 1943 to the rural area where he had been born.

Shortly after the war he met my grandma; they got married in October 1948. He worked in the paper factory in Jeziorna for nearly his entire adult life. In his free time he bred pigeons and was a football fan of Legia Warszawa.

After the departure of my grandma he found it hard to shake off, yet remained in relatively good (as for his age) mental and physical health until early 2018. Since early August he was bedridden, ate and drunk very little.

Grandpa passed away last night, aged 92. He was my longest-living ancestor and the last grandparent alive. Hopefully at least he suffers no more.

On a young man’s departure

Not the best start into 2017. On Monday I learnt from we ex-workmates from The Employer our colleague Krzysiek had passed away aged 31 on New Year’s Eve, thus eventually losing a half-year battle against cancer.

I first met Krzysiek in early 2011 when I joined The Employer as a full-time analyst. He had worked there for some three years and despite being only 25 had been promoted twice by then. As a definitely talented up-and-coming relationship manager, he was entrusted taking charge of the most promising prospective accounts.

He has not let down senior managers who had put a lot of faith and trust in his skills. In 2012 thanks to his determination, patience and negotiation skills he won the biggest deals in the history of The Employer. I was proud to participate in this success as I handled those clients on analytical coverage side. Though our styles or work differed and personally we were not on the same wavelength, we were always able to overcome different approaches to many issues and teamed up to pursue common goals. Our professional ties loosened up in late 2013 when The Employer decided to give up on the biggest accounts and part of business winding-down strategy. Since mid-2014 when I left The Employer we talked twice or maybe three times when we ran across each other in town.

Around the end of summer holidays I was told Krzysiek had been fighting brutal cancer for a few weeks and that the disease was ruthlessly spreading across his body. He went on a sick leave in September and was admitted to a hospice in November.

Farewell mass was administered on Wednesday in Warsaw and urn with Krzysiek’s ashes was buried on Thursday in his hometown. The very farewell, including priest’s sermon was touching and poignant. I counted around 300 people inside the church, including family, neighbours and friends from his hometown, schoolmates, fellow football fans, workmates and even CFOs of companies he had had relationships with.

Oddly enough, several people with whom he had worked until his last days in the office, did not turn up at the church. Sadly, no one from my team did not participate in the farewell as well, though they had worked with Krzysiek longer than me.

This sad event was a heart-rending reminder how fragile human life is. A year ago Krzysiek was a healthy young man with future wide open ahead of him. I would depart from the truth if I told Krzysiek had been my friend, he had been my workmate, yet his departure is a milestone in my life, as this is the first decease of somebody of my age I knew well. Until last days, in my narrow perception death would strike only people far older than me.

Besides my previous workplace is falling apart. The Employer, taken over by its competitor last year, is now seeing its workforce decimated. Several people with who I worked and whom I owe a lot have been laid off or are likely to be given the sack by the end of January.

But as it turns out again, every cloud has a silver lining. Had it not been for the farewell, I would not have met several people I had not seen for months. The sad gathering proved to be an occasion to renew old comradeships. Yesterday, despite the middle of the long weekend, we met up, not to foster memory of Krzysiek but to talk over what was going on in our lives.

With such starting point, I suppose things I poised to get only better.

Great people depart, ordinary people depart

The sudden departure of professor Władysław Bartoszewski is not just a loss of an outstanding witness of twentieth century’s atrocious history and meritorious advocate of dialogue and forgiveness in international relations. It is, as many claim, another milestone towards the end of a certain era. The last representatives of WW2 survivors generation are slowly passing away, the same will happen soon to the last imprisoned in Stalinist times, in decades veterans of Solidarity will also grow less numerous. This is, inevitably, history in the making.

Media, not only Polish, are full of memoirs and obituaries of Mr Bartoszewski, since the professor was recognised and appreciated well beyond borders of Poland. For me Mr Bartoszewski symbolised the power of individualism and was awe-inspiring example of brilliant intellectual strength despite grand old age. As for the former, Mr Bartoszewski excelled at striking a balance between speaking out what he thought and not hurting anyone. As for the latter, he proved keeping up intellectual activity can help preserve mental fitness of a man in his 60s. Despite being 93, until his last days he was involved in public issues. He made his last appearance mere five days before the decease and was due to make another one tomorrow.

His lifeline, long and broad, was cut unexpectedly. In a TV interview given on his 80^th birthday, he confessed he feared a day when he would be still physically alive, yet not understanding what was going on around. As he wished, this day has never come, senility has never taken over him. Maybe thus he met his destination, he lived on the run and passed away on the run, so may we remember him that way.

The departure of aunt Krysia, my maternal’s grandmother’s cousin and my mother’s godmother also struck as a bolt from the blue. Aunt was 85, yet despite that age still mentally and physically fit. I last saw her on 14 March, the day after her name-day and in the eve of my grandma’s death. I thought when my grandma was at her age she was also so full of energy. Even on the day she passed away nothing presage the oncoming tragedy. Just like Mr Bartoszewski a few days later, she fainted in her flat, was taken to a hospital where she died.

Not my immediate relative, yet a loss. Aunt Krysia and her sister Anna Sabina (who died in 2005) gave my maternal grandmother and her sister shelter when they were driven out from Warsaw by Germans after Warsaw Uprising. For my mother aunt was the last person who spent a lot of time with her mother with who she could recollect her mother. As a child, I used to spend around a month each summer in aunt Krysia and her sister’s flat in Piaseczno. They looked after my cousins and me when our mothers had to go to work.

On the professional front, a farewell to a 34-year-old talented manager working for one of the New Factory’s competitors. He died suddenly in a hotel during a business trip to one of Poland’s major cities. He was survived by a partner with who he had two small children. As it turns out, you will not know the date, nor the hour…

Hope we have run out of misery for a while and the blog will not resemble an obituary column at least in the coming months. Next week an overdue note on the imminent presidential election. What the campaign and candidates stand for is a crying shame, yet the issue is too serious to escape my notice.

"We're here only in passing"

24 July 2010

My paternal grandparents are both 84, they still manage on their own, but one day they’ll surely depart. When? How will I react? Uncertainty crops up once again…

Easter, on the word of Christian beliefs, the celebration of rebirth. Christians trust Jesus died and resurrected and so one day all His followers will. This belief is meant to fill people with hope that life does not cease at the moment of demise. One’s soul just enters a different dimension, a transition to another phase in the pursuit of eternal life.

Rozłąka naszym losem.

Spotkanie naszą nadzieją.

Fate parts us, but we ought to hope one day we will reunite. Faith, whether Christian, or any other, is probably meant to help people cope with bereavement.

Recent departure of my grandma was not my first close encounter to death. Six and a half years ago my maternal grandfather passed away. The two deceases made me ponder upon the nature of death, as a down-to-earth, yet an immensely complicated phenomenon. In medical terms a decease is a moment when functions of a human body come to a halt, heart ceases to beat, brain stops working (to be more precise these processes do not have to terminate at the same moment). In some spiritual context, the body dies down, yet the soul might fly away from the body. In psychological dimension the passage from “alive” to “dead” state means a human being once “is” and then “is not”, something one can find hard to comprehend.

You could argue whether every death brings out comparable feelings of sorrow leaving out extreme examples, such as death of Stalin, which filled millions of people with joy and hope for communist regime thawing out). Perception and coping with death from what I have observed depends on combination of three factors:

1) Whether a person died young, pre-maturely or naturally, out of old age. It seems it easier to come to terms with a decease of a person who passes away having lived until the grand old age, since being born and dying are an indispensable part of each human’s existence and whenever someone’s lifeline ends naturally rather is being cut across.

2) Whether a departure is expected or sudden. A death preceded by long illness helps relatives prepare (if possible at all) to cope with bereavement. A death which strikes out of the blue comes a much bigger shock to family of the deceased.

3) Whether a death is quick or long-lasting. A fast decease, which does not cause a dead person suffer a lot before breathing their last might give some comfort to their relative, while a long-lasting death means usually many people suffer together with the terminally ill.

My recent experience tells me it is somewhat easier to reconcile to loss of grandma if I bear in mind she lived long in good health, I had some time to face up to the thought the decease is inexorable (half a year ago I knew chances she would recover were low, more than two weeks before death it became clear it was just a matter of time). The worst period for me was essentially “the wait”, since without going into details grandma’s farewell with this world lasted exactly two weeks, during which she knew what was going on with her and suffered badly. Doctors in the hospital could at best ease her pain and wait.

The first half of March has brought on thoughts on one of the controversial ethical issues in the public discourse – euthanasia, a dilemma I had had no clear-cut opinion on. Now I am sure I am against it. I have realised departure has to ensue naturally, no matter how long the pre-death agony lasts. I cannot imagine anyone from the family instructing a doctor to put grandma out of misery. Yet I have to confess the phone call from the hospital which woke us up before dawn on 15 March brought a bit of relief that grandma no longer suffered.

Those two weeks also triggered the question about the sense of suffering. I doubt there can be any good answer to it. Suffering is a part of divine plan and we as humans should not interfere.

Grandma was buried in a relatively new part of cemetery in Skolimow. After the funeral I looked around to learn grandma’s grave is surrounded by graves of people who died in their 50s, 60s or early 70s. I found only three graves of people aged above 80 the moment they passed away and only one grave of a 91-year-old woman, older than my grandma. That sample of burial grounds could give lie to a rising life expectancy, yet if our goal is other than calling into question statistics, the conclusion is only one – the surrounding graves symbolise far too many premature deceases…

The day after the funeral I had to take a business trip to a client seated some 50 kilometres from Poznan. Since four persons were travelling and the destination was far away from the nearest train station, it was most convenient and economical to go by a company car. Imagine the distance from Poznan to Warsaw can be covered within less than two and a half hours. Horrifyingly, driving 200 kmph at the motorways is ordinary for most sales representatives and senior managers having company cars at their disposal, who do not have to worry about sky-high petrol consumption but have too little time to waste it on slow driving. Oddly enough most of those people have small children, yet the thought their (and not only their) offspring could become semi-orphans far too early does not put them off lunatic driving. Well, maybe the word “lunatic” is not the most suitable, since the driver was confident and we did not have any situation threatening an accident, yet the very speed of 200 kmph is excessive.

Memento mori… Jesteśmy tu tylkona chwilę

Grandma

My paternal grandmother was born on 3 November 1925 in the village of Skolimow, today a part of Konstancin-Jeziorna in a poor family. Before the outbreak of World War II she completed seven-year primary school. During the Nazi occupation her family's penury even worsened, since grandma's father was killed by Germans in February 1943.

After the end of the war she met my grandfather. They got married in October 1948; almost one year after the nuptials ceremony she gave brith to my father. Four years later my uncle was born.

She spent most of her adult life sharing her time between running the house, bringing up sons and work in shoe polish factory in Konstancin.

In mid 1980s she retired to help my aunt and uncle look after my cousin and then to take care of her ailing mother, the only great grandparent I barely remember, who died in March 1991. Her younger brother died in January 2011, while she stayed in good health, both physically and mentally fit despite quite advanced age.

In the recent years she was the first to look after my grandfather after his several stays in the hospital. His recovery has to be credited to her dedication and sacrifice, made at the expense of neglected progressing osteoporosis which sent her nearly bed-ridden in July 2014. Fortunately, for next over half a year she could get up from bed from time to time and still remained fully mentally sound almost until her very last days. 

Grandma passed away today, aged 89. She was survived by a husband, two sons, two grandsons and one great grandson.

I shall remember the last words grandma told me on 21 February, during our last conversation when she was entirely conscious: Przestań się wreszcie uczyć i znajdź sobie dziewczynę, bo jak rodzice umrą, to zostaniesz sam na świecie i umrzesz też sam. Home truth. Grandma tended to be coarse at times... The priest who came a week later with last rites sighed and told grandma she should be happy to be surrounded by the family, since more and more often he sees elderly people who do have children and grandchildren, departing in solitude.

A secular funeral

Attended such ceremony for the first time on Wednesday. In Poland it is customary to stage traditional church funerals even if the deceased were not deeply religious and ceremonies held not in a church and not administered by a priest are still a rarity. This time the deceased, my friend’s father, was a type of a hard-line atheist and had expressed a wish to have a secular funeral.

While a typical Polish funeral consists of a mass in a church and a burial ritual, a secular funeral has a sort of “last farewell” instead of a mass. On Wednesday the farewell was divided into two parts. The first one was a commemorative speech, being a brief biography and characteristics of the deceased, the second was a classical music concert.

I liked the form of the ceremony and part of the content, in terms of concert (the deceased was an opera-goer), but was disgusted by the eulogy… Delivering eulogies during funerals has become a widespread tradition in Poland. I heard it in 2009, 2010and in 2011, so if 2012 is drawing to a close I couldn’t miss the doubtful pleasure of listening to another one.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against speaking highly about dead people, but every time I listened to such speeches, I felt these were description of people other than those being buried. In Poland there is a custom that you either speak highly about the dead, or don’t speak at all, everyone accepts it, the best example is how the picture of late president Lech Kaczyński was distorted afterhis tragic death. Few had guts to tell the truth… I generally detest hypocrisy and maybe wouldn’t be so distasted if such eulogies were only biased. Every man has a bright and a dark side, highlighting only the bright one is forgivable, while telling lies about a deceased is overstepping the boundary of decency. Last year my parents made a blunder at our neighbour’s funeral when they broke out laughing having heard the neighbour, who, truth be told, was a despicable layabout and drunkard, in the eulogy was characterised as ‘exceptionally responsible man and caring father and husband’.

Damn it, if there is little good to say about the dead, conform to the principle and don’t speak at all! I can’t stand it!

During a burial ceremony there was also a moment when I didn’t know how to behave. I stood surrounded probably by former colleagues of the deceased, sturdy men, tall as I, but unlike me, well-built, and while urn was being put into the grave, they all burst into tears and kept on weeping like small children. I felt unnaturally. I saw people crying during funerals many times, but these always were family members or close friends…

Secular funerals are said to grow in popularity in Poland, as Polish society is turning less and less religious. I wouldn’t dare to say the same is true about weddings. Virtually all weddings I attended during last two years were church ones, I’m attending a secular one next month and this will be the odd one. It has to be underlined, however, if someone gets married in a church, if doesn’t mean they are religious. It’s all about the setting. Wedding in a registry office lacks the memorable character the one, traditional, in a church, has. Wedding is in principle a one-in-a-lifetime event which deserves a unique setting, but whether it is justified to spend on it an equivalent of new compact car’s price (alternatively even 10 metres of a new flat might be purchased for that money) to put on a triumph of form over substance is a topic for a separate posting…

And my advice for anyone going to Cmentarz Północny on a business day – set off from home early or check the timetable carefully. I set off from home at 8:45 to turn up for a ceremony starting at 10:30 in time and ended up stuck in a traffic jam beginning at the border or Warsaw, which I detoured through Jeziorki and having covered 25% of the distance within 40% of allotted time on a rainy day (rain snarls up traffic) I decided to forsake my car near underground station and take the public transport. Finding a space to park a car around 9:30 was difficult, yet doable, then I somehow managed to get to my destination by underground (33 minutes ride to the northern end of the line is boring) and from the beautiful Metro Młociny terminus, by 701 bus. Returning home was a bigger nuisance. I had to wait for a bus in a rain for 25 minutes (they run once in half an hour), getting from the cemetery to Ursynów took me an hour and a quarter. Cemeteries, as places visited often by elderly people, should certainly have much better public transport links to city centres…

I had a dream

Trying my best to break away for the last week. I’ve had some three crises over that time. The first one struck, quite naturally, in the second half of the working day on Wednesday, the second woke me up on Friday morning, the last one hit last night. Each one involved physical pain and pounding heart, but with each consecutive one intensity of pain wanes. I realise I can’t expect something which has been at the back of my mind for months to vanish into the air when I snap my fingers, but as I’ve finally got hold of myself I think I’m on the right track.

The first “crisis” was followed by one of the most uncanny dreams I’ve ever had in my life. It was deviously short and conspicuously realistic and thus has become etched in my memory. After a few days I still remember it well, with details and will try to take it into pieces.

I was in a laboratory in a local health centre. For no apparent reason I had to have my blood examined. I came there in a suit, took off the jacket, pulled up the right sleeve of my shirt and let a nurse prick a needle in my skin to suck in blood to a test tube. The needle punctured my skin and the blood began to gush; not trickled but gushed like a geyser. It splashed my shirt, suit, the nurse, who desperately tried to stem the small wound; to no avail. Then pressure under which my body pushed the blood from itself rose, the blood splattered walls and ceiling of the laboratory. The nurse ran to bring in other personnel to help her stem my bleeding. Somehow they couldn’t. I gazed at their endeavours and felt I was fading away. The less blood I had, the weaker I was and eventually I popped off and… woke up, paralysed by fear. It was half past two in the night and I was afraid to fall asleep again. I worried if I’d fallen asleep again, the dream would’ve ended and I’d have died.

For starters, a few questions regarding the very content of the dream…

Firstly, why did I need to have my blood examined? I had such examination in May, results were beyond reproach, I’m keeping fit, stay immune to germs flying around, cope well with stress… Leave out!

Secondly, why did I wear a suit? I have three suits – one for grand occasions and two put on when going to work only. This was one of those latter two. The first connection with work creeps over, but is misleading.

Thirdly, why a small wound brought about a flood of blood and why so many people who tried to help me couldn’t stem it?

Lust, but no least (watch out, this is a deliberately made spelling error, I saw such lapse once in a corporate mail and can’t get it out of my mind), why was I indifferently watching myself bleeding and patiently awaiting the imminent decease, if any sane creature that faces death desperately tries to save their life?

I told my parents about the weird dream, they told me it could signify I had a long life ahead.

I asked my female colleagues from the neighbouring team who start their working day from reading a horoscope if they could decipher the meaning of my dream and they found this. According to one of the first results uncle google spewed out, purport of a dream of blood is positive.

“Blood symbolises life (…), if it appears in dreams it renders openness, joy of life and self-esteem” – well, I turned from intraversion to moderate extraversion over the last year, despite last bad moments I smile a lot to people and display joy and have much self-confidence. As you read on, it gets more interesting.

“Blood is also a symbol of purification. When a body gets poisoned, blood is released to decontaminate the body. Blood appearing in a dream may signal a need to set free from secrets, problems or misdeeds. (…) In relationships between women and men the blood in a dream symbolises infidelity.” – if you have read through my previous post, you surely realise why I think the dream wasn’t haphazard.

“Blood might also by a symbol or sacrifice”. Extraverted people tend to do a lot for other people, even make sacrifices for them, and take pleasure in helping others.” – my workmates told me the dream rendered my personality well, but in their assessment they only covered how I behave towards people I work with. All, except one, couldn’t scratch beneath the surface and find the more important for me conclusion. Two reflections sprang to me mind. First, all the sacrifices I had in my mind were senseless. Second, the Elton John’s song. It tells a story of marriage going through a crisis, so surely it doesn’t reflect my personal situation, but contains one verse: It’s two hearts living in two separate worlds. I’ve written it once and maybe it’s the right moment to reiterate it – we are worlds apart and we’ll be still drifting apart.

“Finally, blood symbolises being born again (…) and may signal the desire to turn over a new leaf, in professional or personal realm of life” – and this is what breaking away is about – starting over :)

On Thursday afternoon I popped out for a lunch with a friend. She suggested I read about Jung’s contribution to dream analysis. Jung argued content of dreams should be put into a patient’s individual perspective. Only then the dream material can help rediscover someone’s sphere of the subconscious. I’m unfortunately not an expert in psychoanalysis, so I’m not capable of making any further steps towards taking this dream apart. But instead I found another website which says how Jung would generally interpret blood in a dream.

“According to Jung, blood is a source of life, love and spirituality. If we lose it in our dream, it means we feel emotional exhaustion and weakness and we should do something to overcome it” – if the chap has gone down in the history of psychoanalysis, there must have been a reason for it…

Another week passed by, interest rates weren’t cut (against analysts’ expectations), no new independent, party-backed candidate for a technical prime minister was presented, the incumbent prime minister delivered a speech, polls showed support for PiS was higher than for PO for the first time during five years of PO rule and meanwhile I focus on weird dreams… But who cares, I write for posterity!